General description The league conducts its competition in a regular double round-robin format where each team plays with every other one twice. The league conducts its competitions from fall to spring, however due to climate conditions in Ukraine, a mid-season winter break is usually longer than the summer break between competition seasons. Since 1995 the league also follows the same system of points calculation that is adopted throughout the whole European continent, 3 points for win, one for draw, and none for loss.
Number of participants During its history the number of members in the league has fluctuated. In its first years before 1999 the league consisted of 20 or more participants. Later there was an idea to decrease the number of members in all leagues in order to improve the quality of competition. Until 2013 the number of participants was reduced to 18 except for couple of seasons in 2006–2008. Recently since 2013 the number was reduced further to 16 where it remains since.
Relegation and promotion Traditionally two better teams out of First League are being swapped for two worse teams out of Premier (Higher) League. On more rare occasions a third team gets a chance of promotion, but there were also seasons when only one team would get promoted. Only twice three teams were promoted to the top division, both times happening due to the top tier expansion. The league's winner and usually the second placed runner-up get accepted to the Premier League. However, due to the rule that a second team of the club cannot be promoted when its senior team plays in a higher tier, on few occasions when a second club team finished in top two places the third-placed team was admitted to the top division. In 2013 there was set a precedent when a club on its own will has refused to be promoted. In 2017 there was created another precedent when a club that earned promotion was denied it based on administrative decision. With relegation, the league's policy is a bit different, although originally it also was two for two. In 1996 the Second League (lower tier) was converted into a de facto regional league with two (three) regional groups. The league has also decreased its number of participants from originally 22-24 to only 16-18. There were also number of withdrawals which triggered sometime additional number in rotation. The relegation or promotion play-offs were previously usually organized under unforeseen circumstances such as a team's withdrawal from the league and often were not scheduled until after the season had concluded. Since 2011 relegation play-offs have become a well established tradition. Since the turn of the millennium the frequency of withdrawals in the First League has increased among the competing clubs. In order to fight this, the league has been applying a stricter approach to every club's financial situation to avoid withdrawals during a season.
League's popularity Since the 2009–10 season the First League has started to broadcast selected matches over the internet in order to increase its popularity. The most successful clubs in the league are
FC Dynamo-2 Kyiv,
FC Hoverla Uzhhorod, and
FC Zirka Kropyvnytskyi. All of those teams were either disbanded or went through some sort of reorganizations. In 2016 Dynamo Kyiv withdrew its second team from professional competitions, while FC Hoverla was refused in attestation. Previously in 2008 FC Zirka that went through reorganization was re-established based on a local youth football club
FC Olimpik Kropyvnytskyi and in 2016 won its third championship in the league. ==Past winners and runners==